The bones are zealously guarded by Malygos and his blue dragonflight, but the rise of the Lich King and the Scourge allowed the undead to claim many sets of bones from the graveyard and use them to create frost wyrms for the Scourge forces. The Dragonblight was also the home of the first humans to fall victim to the Plague.

Contents

History

Once this region was a thriving land, the most fertile in Northrend after the Sholazar Basin. That was long ago. Now it is a vast wasteland where even the snow and ice seem drained. Most of the Dragonblight is a single enormous valley. And it’s filled with bodies of dragons. Ailing and old dragons, from every dragonflight, from all over the world, come here to die. The ground is littered with dragons of all colors. Black, red, green, blue, and bronze, they all lie here together, all their differences set aside in death. The mightiest creatures in the world, laid low by age and illness and attack. The land has never recovered, and never will. It weeps for its lost children, and remains barren in their memory. In effect, there are no particularly noteworthy happenings in the Dragonblight's past, save the deaths of many dragons and the first use of the Plague to wipe out the native Humans.LoM 99-100

When Prince Arthas returned to Northrend, answering the Lich King's call to fight Illidan Stormrage, his first base camp was on the southern coast of Dragonblight.

Description from site

For millennia the Great Dragonblight has served as the enduring heart of Northrend.

Here dense forests surround a vast Arctic wasteland littered with the massive, gleaming bones of perished dragons. In the center of this frozen expanse lies Wyrmrest Temple, a structure believed to be built by the world-shaping titans shortly after Azeroth's creation. Many legends hold that the five great Dragon Aspects were blessed within this fortress and given their charge to watch over the budding world. Perhaps it is for this reason that dragons nearing the end of their lives come to the Dragonblight to enrich the land with their passing.

Surrounding Wyrmrest Temple are five majestic dragon shrines: red, bronze, green, blue, and black, each blessed with the powers of its respective flight. In recent times the undead Scourge has laid siege to these shrines in an effort to further its attempts at raising terrifying new variations of undead dragons to serve the Lich King.

In an attempt to arrest these invasions, the red Dragon Aspect, Alexstrasza, has begun recruiting heroes to aid in the fight against the Scourge, even as the taunka and tuskarr wage their own desperate battles against the undead. The one-time Scarlet Crusade, now the Scarlet Onslaught, has arrived as well in the hopes of claiming victory in their ongoing campaign against the Lich King and his minions.

Both the Alliance and the Horde have begun establishing a presence in the Dragonblight, taking a particular interest in the barred entrance to Icecrown, Angrathar the Wrathgate. There both factions have begun gearing up for the siege that will inevitably lead into the lair of the Lich King himself.

The immediate dangers of the Dragonblight are posed not only by the Lich King, however, but also by the blue dragonflight. Determined to manipulate all existing magic to serve his own purposes, the blue Dragon Aspect, Malygos, has ordered his flight to maneuver colossal machines into key positions over magical ley line clusters. Many believe that these dire constructs are intended to realign the paths of magical energy that course beneath the earth. If successful, Malygos's tampering could result in an ecological and magical catastrophe that would threaten not only the stability of Northrend, but ultimately the equilibrium of the entire world.

People and culture

A tuskarr bridge in the Dragonblight.

Of the living, the most common creatures here are nerubians. The entrance to Azjol-Nerub sits near the north edge of the Dragonblight, just below Crystalsong Forest; and before the Scourge came the spider-men wandered freely through this region, moving among the dragon corpses without a care. Now those who survived the War of the Spider find refuge up here, using dragon bones for cover from Scourge patrols. They hatch plans to reclaim their kingdom but lack the numbers or the strength to succeed. Tauren live here as well, though only in one place. A pack of Icemist tauren settled on the west edge of the Dragonblight, on the shore of Lake Wintergrasp. They don’t venture into the blight proper very often, preferring the clean cold of the lake to the bitter air of doom and death. Scourge creatures wander through here all the time, looking for ways to use the dragon remains, or searching for any artifacts the dragons left behind. Since they can’t pass through Crystalsong Forest, the Dragonblight also provides the only route to the east of Northrend, other than scaling the Storm Peaks. Most of the Scourge creatures lurk near the northwest corner, close to Icecrown Glacier. Some blue dragons live here as well. They tend their fallen kin and pay their respects. The dragons live in Wyrmrest Temple, down toward the southern shore. They communicate regularly with their kin in Coldarra. It was also home to several Humans native to the land, who had built their villages there. They were eventually turned into Undead soldiers of the Scourge.LoM 99

Geography

Dragonblight

Most of the Dragonblight is a single valley, sloping southward to the Shiverwind Coast. Low hills rise along the sides, taller to the east where they butt up against the Grizzly Hills and Zul’Drak. To the north a thin line of tall, sharp-edged cliffs breaks the land where Icecrown Glacier begins. The western edge borders Lake Wintergrasp, and the ground there is low and even and frozen solid. Many animals live here, feeding off the dragons’ remains. Birds, bears, spiders, wolves, and bats all tear at the remains or at each other. Wendigo and sasquatch, and worg packs, live here as well. Thanks to the Scourge, undead animals wander here as well, killing and converting the living where they can.LoM 99

Battle.net map

Those who have braved the chill wind speak of a graveyard called Dragonblight. Treasure is rumored to lie beneath draconian bones, but vigilant dragons watch this sacred ground for foolhardy graverobbers.[3]